McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton roared to the quickest time in the morning session of Friday’s free practice at the Japan Grand Prix.
The Briton, who takes a seven-point lead over Ferrari’s Felipe Massa into the weekend with only three races left, set the fastest lap with his Brazilian rival a close second.
Hamilton clocked a best time of one minute, 18.910 seconds over the 4.563km Fuji Speedway circuit to edge out Massa by 0.153 seconds.
Hamilton’s Finnish team mate Heikki Kovalainen posted the third fastest lap, while reigning world champion Kimi Raikkonen was fourth quickest for Ferrari.
McLaren and Ferrari filled the top four spots on the timesheets exclusively in the last 30 minutes of the session, which was held under sunny skies after the 2007 race weekend at the foot of Mount Fuji was hit by torrential rain.
The opening session was largely incident-free, with the only yellow flag caused by a gentle spin by BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld at turn 10 in the closing stages.
The next 13 cars all lapped in the 1m 20s bracket, led by Sebastian Vettel’s Toro Rosso. The Italian Grand Prix winner recorded 1m 20.121s, chased by BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica (1m 20.160s), Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Bourdais (1m 20.182s), Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima (1m 20.217s), Force India’s Adrian Sutil (1m 20.288s), Williams’ Nico Rosberg (1m 20.350s), Red Bull’s Mark Webber (1m 20.620s), BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld (1m 20.628s), Toyota’s Jarno Trulli (1m 20.657s), Honda’s Rubens Barrichello (1m 20.753s) and Jenson Button (1m 20.769s), Toyota’s Timo Glock (1m 20.823s) and Red Bull’s David Coulthard (1m 20.905s).
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